


Meet You There

by MeredithBrody



Category: NCIS: New Orleans
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, flangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 13:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10877520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeredithBrody/pseuds/MeredithBrody
Summary: OK, I admit this is gleamed from my friend telling me that Pride is angry a lot. That’s literally all I know. The rest all comes from my mind, and this is really just an excuse for some Prody flangst. The reason for my absence is that I’m working on an ENORMOUS project, and I don’t want to post it prematurely. I started it back in February and I don’t know if it'll be finished until NEXT February, but PinkAngel17 will tell you all, it’s worth waiting for and is extreme slow burn Prody. Anyway, enjoy this post-financial shitshow that was cause by the song “Meet You There” by Busted.





	Meet You There

**Author's Note:**

> OK, I admit this is gleamed from my friend telling me that Pride is angry a lot. That’s literally all I know. The rest all comes from my mind, and this is really just an excuse for some Prody flangst. The reason for my absence is that I’m working on an ENORMOUS project, and I don’t want to post it prematurely. I started it back in February and I don’t know if it'll be finished until NEXT February, but PinkAngel17 will tell you all, it’s worth waiting for and is extreme slow burn Prody. Anyway, enjoy this post-financial shitshow that was cause by the song “Meet You There” by Busted.

******_It’s written all over your face_**  
 **_Such a painful thing to waste_**  
 **_Tell me now, where do we go_**  
 **_Now the future's not so clear_**  
 **_I can’t believe we've ended here_**  
 **_Where's the world that doesn't care_**  
 **_Maybe I could meet you there_**

King wasn’t used to having someone else in his room. It had happened so infrequently since he had separated from Linda, but when it did happen it was always the same person, and she was not graceful when she was trying to escape before anyone else arrived. He wasn’t sure anymore if this counted as a booty call or a relationship, but it was something that they had had for the entire last year, since she had left NCIS and taken up a position with the State Attorney's office in Baton Rouge. What had happened her had been traumatic for her, he knew that, but he wished that she’d come home. “You’re really going, huh?” He asked, sitting up and watching her trying to pull her boots on in the twilight before dawn.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” She said a little sheepishly, pausing in the most ridiculous position with her boot half on her foot. He couldn’t help but smile at that, and he wondered how she’d gotten all the way through to getting her boots on without waking him earlier. Even at this time in a morning he was struck by how beautiful she was, and cursed himself for taking two years to notice that.

“You’re not quiet, Meredith.” He chuckled a little, sitting up further and reaching for his boxers off the closest chair. This was the worst part of her visits, the part where he had to let her go. “So you’re going?” He repeated his question, hoping that she didn’t brush it off this time. He wasn’t sure he could take her brushing it off again.

“I told you when I got here that I couldn’t stay. I tell you that every time.” She said simply, and King had to admit that he didn’t like that she was so sure about that. He didn’t understand why she couldn’t stay, why there weren’t good enough reasons for her to stay right there with him.

“It’s been a year, Merri.” He slid off the bed and walked up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and feeling her melt back against him. The truth was that no matter how much time passed, it was never going to get any easier to face each day with someone else in her seat, behind her desk. “We miss you.” He knew he spoke for the whole team, and for Sebastian and Loretta, CJ and Danny, and even Laurel. Everyone missed the presence Merri brought with her.

“I know. I just… I can’t stay, Dwayne.” She sounded more torn about it this time, less certain that what she was doing was truly the right thing. He lived for hearing that in her voice as he always hoped that, just maybe, this would be the time he could convince her to stay. That maybe this was the time that he could convince her that they were worth pushing, that their relationship was a reason for her to stay right where she was, with him. It might never work, in fact he was sure that would probably never work, but he wanted it too.

He wanted to have Merri there with him permanently. With cases like the one they currently had, the ones where he pushed too far, became obsessed and angry, they were the ones she could talk him down. He could give a dozen selfish and unselfish reasons he wanted her to stay, but he wanted to know her reasons for staying away. “Give me one good reason.”

“I have a job, a system. Help.” Something about that didn’t ring entirely true. She had had all of those when she’d been here, and while he knew that Russo betrayal and what had happened had pushed her beyond what she could cope with he was sure she’d heal better here. Where her friends were.

“You could have all those here. I’d bring you back in a heartbeat.” He meant it to. NCIS would have her back, he already knew that, and he would find space on his team for her if that was what she wanted. He’d step back himself if it meant he could have Merri here in New Orleans again like old times, but he doubted she’d ever go for that.

“You have a team, one that I’m not part of any more.” She whispered that, and he could hear the pain in it. It was a fact, and he knew that was her way of telling him no. They both wished things were different though, he knew that, and he knew that she was regretting the decision she made. He knew her well enough to read between her lines.

“Every day I wish you were. You’re so close and yet you’re so far away.” She was still in the state, just in another city. She could have moved so much further away, and yet she stayed as near as she could. King wondered if that was also partly because she didn’t really want to leave either. She wanted to be near him, and near her friends, her chosen family. This was her home, even if she didn’t live here right now.

“You could always come to Baton Rouge more often.” She teased, turning her head to kiss him gently. For one more moment King held onto the image that they were a normal couple. A couple who would see each other again that night, who were just kissing each other as they got ready in a morning. He would have to visit her more.

“Whenever I can.” He had once only driven up to see his daughter. Now he would spend the afternoon with Laurel, and the evening and night with Merri. Then come morning he’d be back in New Orleans. “Every time you leave, the look on your face makes me think that it'll be the last time. It’s written all over your face that you don’t know when you’ll be back.” He hated that look, but he knew that it was because she really didn’t know any of that. “This is too important for me to let it go to waste. We need each other.” She told him that she needed him. For the first time, he was telling her that he needed her too. “I need you, Merri. Especially right now.” The anger he’d had the night before was still simmering below the surface, but as long as she was there he could control it more. This man was holding children, little kids, and blaming it on the actions of the NCIS teams investigating him. The rage wasn’t going to stop, but Merri had helped him focus, and helped him relax.

“I’m still here, Dwayne. I’m at the end of the phone, and I’m only an hour and a half away.” That was a plus, at least she was never far away, and if something ever happened to either of them, they could be together again in a short amount of time. Then for the first time in a long time, King saw a smile that reached her eyes. “None of this was an ending. Me leaving NCIS, your current problems. It’s never the end, it’s just a change of direction.”

He wasn’t used to her being the optimistic one, he wasn’t used to her telling him that everything was going to be OK, but it was a nice change. He just wished that there was more certainty. His career was in the balance, everything was so unsure, and he wasn’t sure that his future had ever been more clouded. “I don’t know what will happen.”

“We never do.” She said quietly and kissed him again before pulling away and finally putting her boot on before she shook her hair out and smiled at him. Once again her beauty and the fact she had chosen to give him a part of herself very few people ever got to share in struck him. He loved her deeply, and he was both happy and sad about this situation.

“Where is there a world that wouldn’t care about our careers, about our pasts and our sins? A world where I could be with you out of the shadows?” It was an entirely rhetorical question, and while he would love to be with Merri openly, publicly, he wasn’t sure there was going to be a time for that any time soon. They both needed to establish themselves privately first. Figure out where they fit. People would have so many thoughts on their relationship, and he wanted to avoid that. He just wished that nobody would care, and they could have the life he craved, a future with her. “Where is a world where I could be with you every day?”

“I don’t know.” Merri’s soft smile told him that she was wondering that herself. Maybe she loved him as much as he did her. Not that either of them had used those words yet. It was how he felt though. “But when you find it, I’ll meet you there.” She grinned then reached out and squeezed his hand. Alright, she definitely felt the way he did. That made him feel a little better about all of this.

“See you next month?” He asked, knowing that it would likely be a few weeks before he saw her again. There was so much turmoil for her, too, though everything in her office was political, and that just made things even worse for her in a way. He wanted to help her, but he had to focus here.

“Or sooner, if you need me.” She then pulled him closer for a deep kiss before turning away and heading out of the door. Despite his better judgement he didn’t follow her. Instead he picked up the file he’d abandoned when she’d arrived the night before and started thinking the case through again. If he could find it, if he could break the code and find those kids… Maybe he would be able to find that world for him and Merri too.


End file.
